Prior to the conception and development of the present invention, children can become bored by conventional means of teaching math skills, such as addition and subtraction. Flash cards would be one example. Games of all sorts have been devised to amuse the students while at the same time educate them and help them practice their skills in an interesting way. Card games abound for this purpose.
There are many mathematical instruction games involving dice. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 1,729,023, Andrews teaches a dice game where covers are slid over numbers that correspond to the numerals indicated by the dice or the sum of the two dice. Numerous dice math games involve use of a special die with operation symbols on them, such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,314,168. Another is U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,290, which teaches an arithmetic dice game for two players with a dice “popper” dome for numerical dice and an operant die. If the player answers the problem posed by the dice correctly, he or she get to place a peg in a hole on a 12×12 array that corresponds to the numbers appearing. The one to first place all of his or her pegs is the winner. U.S. Pat. No. 6,786,485 also teaches a mathematical dice game involving numbered dice and an operant die.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,386,998, Mader discloses a math game apparatus involving dice and pegs wherein a multiplicity of pegs numbered on one end are mounted along one wall of a box on a axel through the radial center of each peg. The sum of dice thrown determine which peg numbers get rotated out of view. The Mader game uses only addition and is of little educational value. Another game exercising only addition skill is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,410,182.